You tell me why Facebook censored this ad

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and chief executive officer of WND. He is the author or co-author of 13 books that have sold more than 5 million copies, including his latest, "The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament." Before launching WND as the first independent online news outlet in 1997, he served as editor in chief of major market dailies including the legendary Sacramento Union.

On the same day Facebook and YouTube joined Apple in the free-speech boycott of Alex Jones, an equally telling event that exposed the motives of the Internet Cartel got slightly less coverage.

I understand Alex Jones rubs some people the wrong way: He’s loud, he can be abrasive and he’s edgy. While he’s got a large fan base, he turns many people off. I get it. But none of that justifies denying him his free-speech rights. Where does that kind of intolerance and blacklisting end? The American political dialogue cannot afford to have monopoly corporations like Google, YouTube, Apple, Facebook and Amazon effectively doing an end-run around the First Amendment. Is Michael Savage next? Rush Limbaugh?

But let’s look at another egregious act of censorship by Facebook that took place on the same day.

Republican congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng, a second-generation Cambodian-American from Fresno, California, created what I would characterize as one of the most effective political ads I’ve ever seen. She focused on her own powerful life story and achievements. She didn’t attack her incumbent Democratic opponent; in fact she referred to him as “a nice guy.” It was uplifting. It was positive – forward-looking. No name-calling. No bogus claims. And it was a paid, political ad – you know, the kind of speech the First Amendment was actually crafted to protect.

Before we go any further, if you haven’t already seen it, I invite and encourage you to watch it right now:

Facebook rejected that ad. On what basis? That the inspiring true story of her parents’ ordeal under the genocidal Khmer Rouge Communist regime was “too graphic.”

Ridiculous! Would the showing of similarly graphic images of the Holocaust be “too graphic” for the snowflakes at Facebook? Who has not seen images like this? And if anyone hasn’t, it is a public service to show them to such sheltered souls. It’s historical reality. And we should never forget it. Those images are also extremely relevant to Elizabeth Heng’s story, as Facebook noted after backtracking and permitting a paid political ad to run.

As Heng said: “It is unbelievable that Facebook could have such blatant disregard for the history that so many people, including my own parents, have lived through. I’m sure it is shocking for some people to hear about this kind of injustice, but this is reality. This is why I wake up every single day with the fight and determination to have a voice and make a difference in my community.”

That makes two of us, Elizabeth.

She continued, saying neither Facebook “nor any other company in the tech industry get to silence our stories. We’ve seen it over and over again with Republican candidates and organizations. This kind of censorship is an attack on the freedoms that we have as Americans to express what we believe in, and we must hold Facebook accountable.”

She’s so right. The inalienable rights to free speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion are being selectively denied by Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Amazon. It has nothing to do with how “graphic” the messages are. It has everything to do with how politically incorrect they are, which party is putting them out and which side of the political spectrum the messenger represents.

Originally Facebook claimed the ad was “shocking, disrespectful or sensational.” The only thing shocking was how effective it was as a political ad. Heng wasn’t even disrespectful of her opponent, which is standard in political ads. And the only thing sensational about the whole incident was Facebook’s outrageous censorship of constitutionally protected and paid-for political advocacy.

You know why she was censored. Because she’s a Republican. You know the Internet Cartel doesn’t like Republicans. It wants to see a change in control of the House and Senate. It was a case of blatant political interference, meddling – collusion, if you will – and not by Russians, but by the new breed of monopoly corporate socialists.

Amazing stuff. Something’s got to be done – and I mean soon. The First Amendment is at stake. It’s at serious risk from this powerful cartel.

Welcome to my life since the election of 2016, when the Internet Cartel launched its scorched-earth war of extermination on the independent media – including WND. We’ve had to beg for donations since then just to survive.

Here’s my suggestion: First send a political contribution to Elizabeth Weng to help ensure this young, courageous woman is elected to that seat in Fresno. Second, send WND a contribution to help us in our fight for the First Amendment against the Digital Cartel.